Posts by stephen walker
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Great post again, David.
Just throught that I would point out that energy yield ratio is often referred to as EROEI (energy return on energy invested).
[**REPLY:** Thanks, Stephen. I'm kind of randomly bilingual between EYR & EROEI. There's probably some rule about which one to use in a given situation (US vs. UK?) but I've never been able to figure out what it is -- DH]
-
Rather than dispensing moral panic and making bogus comparisons with the past, maybe the mayors (who were the focus of RB's original post) shold get to work on something that is a bit closer to their core "mission". Y'know, like prudent urban (and rural) planning.
Energy availability modelling raises crucial transport issues
Despite rising alarm about future energy availability, major planning initiatives such as the numerous urban developments around New Zealand have not yet incorporated energy shortage/crisis risks.
"In 2030 there is an 85% chance that people in New Zealand will have 30% less energy than we have now."
-
There was a little second hand record shop at the bottom of Fort St
Rock'n'Roll Records. Great shop. Treasure trove. And Kerry knew a thing or two, that's for sure.
-
C'mon, AndrewD, surely commercial radio is simply a medium through which an audience is served up for advertisers. so what comes between the ads--be it the blatheting jocks, ranting talkback callers, opinionated commentators or "music"--is just a carefully calibrated filler device to draw and keep an audience that will be receptive to the advertising you have sold. No? So the prime consideration is not the popularity of the music but its utility in getting large numbers of people in the mood to be bombarded by mind-rotting ads. Well, that's my impression anyway.
-
"Unfortunately we can't plan around what we don't have and don't know"
an oblique reference to rumsfeldian poetry, perhaps?
**The Unknown**
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing
but what we do know, is that we live on a finite planet. and our economic system is predicated on never-ending "growth" (i.e. using up the finite resources at an ever-increasing speed. so unfortunately we are planning around what we don't have--ever-increasing supplies of petroleum and natural gas for transport, agriculture, manufacturing, electricity, etc.
placing your faith in "unkown" new technology to solve all our energy problems seems about as realistic as, i dunno, a cargo cult? ha -
Model T Ford was a novelty that was never going to catch on
but unfortunately it did.
and we ended up with a trashed planet
a dead-end car culture
and petrol-heads causing moral panic. -
I further noted that "Quite a bit of what passes for the culture of the nation is really a reflection of the price and availability of energy. Cheap energy has given rise to a culture of physical dispersion, if not sprawl, coupled with a sense of personal entitlement to private and energy-intensive forms of transportation, housing, and many other things."
what a classic. karma in action, maybe?
-
so, let's see, we have:
Cars are choice.
my car. It is an extension of my household
its a plain fact humans LOVE cars
To whoever said 'driving is not a right', it is.
more convenient than public transport will ever be
people don't actually NEED great public transport
you're asking a lot if you want to take my car away
phew.
how did humanity survive without cars for all those hundreds of thousands of years? what were they thinking, forgoing the pure convenience?and to add my 10 cents worth to the above list of invaluable quotations...
cars suck
yes, they may be convenient, but transforming your whole society and trashing the entire planet in 100 years for the sake of these crappy machines is, well, a bit of a screw-up, to put it mildly.y'see, until the 1950s, AKL had a perfectly good public transport system: electric frigging trams. until some bright spark decided he had to create an LA in the South Pacific (i'm not joking, this is true) (pdf) so they ripped up all the tram lines and over the ensuing 30 years turned the remaining public transport into a joke. but it didn't have to be that way. when they built all the outer suburbs, instead of friggin motorways they could've extended the tram lines.
So, in summary, i agree with:
Kirsten, Bart ,Tom Beard and Heather.because this 50-year driving binge is fast drawing to a close. the party's almost over and y'can all be on y'bikes. will cars disappear? nah. will one-car-for-every-over-16-year-old-based-society disappear. you bet.
a litre of petrol does not even cost one-tenth of one hour's average wage. wait till it costs the same as an hours's wage. that's not as far away as we like to think. or not think about, as it were. the amount of WORK (remember school cert physics?) done by a litre of petrol is HUGE. but our oil-slave supply is just about past its peak...the down slope won't be pretty. because, y'know, EVERYONE (billions of Chinese and Indians included) wants their own car too. they deserve the convenience too, right?
but, no cheap oil = driving reverts to an occasional luxury.
and that solves the petrol-head problem, too, i suppose. nice.
-
As a bit of a movie nerd, I tend to read a lot of reviews and my main criteria for judging the quality of a reviewer is the quality of their writing. As Simon points out, a 200 word review doesn't tell you much about anything, but a good feature review should be a piece of entertainment in itself. An enjoyable (albeit, one-sided) conversation with a knowledgable and articulate person about a shared interest, not some consumer guide for rating toasters.
I couldn't agree more, Lambert.
When I read a film review, I want to learn something, be enetertained and hopefully be made to think a bit. Just as is the case with film directors, film reviewers whose ego jumps out at you are a real turn-off.Plugging my own favourite film reviewer...Gio Fazio in the Japan Times.
And, on a different note, I'm off to see Pitch Black in Shibuya on Sunday. Bet that'll be worth reviewing.
-
what should be on his iPod now...
Television, drug of the nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiationMaybe that scrum was just the disposable heroes of hipocracy...?